ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has asked the federal government to help provinces in their fight against coronavirus pandemic and fulfill their needs by providing them testing kits and protective equipment for doctors and nurses and ventilators for hospitals.

“Every province is looking towards the federal government. They (the provinces) want an equal treatment from the centre. The federation will have to help all the provinces by providing them ventilators for coronavirus patients, testing kits and protective equipment for doctors and nurses who are at the forefront in the war against Covid-19 pandemic,” the PPP chairman said in a video message recorded at the family’s native graveyard at Garhi Khuda Bux in Sindh and released by the party’s Media Office here on Saturday.

The video message was recorded by Mr Bhutto-Zardari on the occasion of the 41st death anniversary of PPP’s founding chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had been executed by the military regime of General Ziaul Haq in 1979 in a murder case through a controversial Supreme Court judgment.

The PPP leaders and workers from all over the country gather at Garhi Khuda Bux on April 4 every year to observe the death anniversary of the former prime minister. The PPP also holds a public meeting and a traditional meeting of its Central Executive Committee to pay homage to the party leadership, but this year, due to the spread of coronavirus in the country, the party suspended all its activities and barred the people from gathering at the Bhutto’s family graveyard.

In the video message, Mr Bhutto-Zardari said that he was visiting the place alone because of the government’s decision to impose the lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19. He also sought the people’s cooperation in implementing the lockdown, saying that the Sindh government had taken this difficult decision in order to save the lives and health of the people.

The PPP chairman appealed to the people to cooperate with the government in this difficult time and remain indoors to avoid spread of the disease that had enveloped almost the entire world.

Stressing the need for national cohesion, the PPP chairman said that the nation needed the unity which it had demonstrated at the time of wars and natural disasters like the earthquake and floods which hit the country a couple of years ago.

“This is the time that we should forget all our differences,” he said.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said that the Sindh government, with the help of charity organisations, was working out a plan to distribute ration to the people at their doorsteps.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2020